


Run Away (with me, Darling)

by MoonflowerInYellowCup



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Dani's child, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Found Family, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Lot of feelings, Original Character(s), Rebecca as the best friend in the world, Slow Burn, The Haunting - Freeform, damie - Freeform, this ended being more angst that original planned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:00:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29820456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonflowerInYellowCup/pseuds/MoonflowerInYellowCup
Summary: Dani had run away.Dani had spent her whole life running away, away from Eddie, away from herself, away from home, away from everything. Dani was an expert when it came to running; she had been running for so long that she had the instinct to run deep down.She had spent so much of her life on running away that she didn't know how to stop. And for years she thought her life would be based on running, but life has a funny way of telling someone when it's time to stop, sometimes in the form of a job that sounded too good to be true, sometimes in the form of the opportunity of a lifetime and sometimes in the form of a sarcastic and relentless gardener with a soft spot for a pair of blue eyes.
Relationships: Dani Clayton & Edmund O'Mara, Dani Clayton & Hannah Grose, Dani Clayton & Jamie, Dani Clayton & Rebecca Jessel, Dani Clayton/Jamie, Hannah Grose/Owen Sharma, Jamie & Hannah Grose, Jamie & Owen Sharma, Jamie & Rebecca Jessel
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	1. It won't bring us down. (Run Away)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, I'm really bad with tags and sumaries.  
> This is my first long fic, for this fandom and in general. I haven't written for years so I'm probably a bit rusty and English is not my first language, so go easy on me, I'm sorry for any mistake, I will appreciate any corrections.
> 
> (This chapter is more like a prologue like a chapter itself, my intention is to try to make them a bit longer).
> 
> Enjoy~~

Dani had run away.

  
Dani had spent her whole life running away: running away from home when her parents fought, running away from home after her father died and her mother started drinking all the alcohol she could find, running away from Eddie when she was eight the first time he tried to kiss her in his room after he asked her if she knew what a kiss was. She was running away from the feeling and the tingle in her stomach when Linda Nielsen, at her twelve, complimented her sundress with a wink in the girls bathroom leaving her flushed and with an inner warmth she had never felt before but felt right. She was running away from her real feelings when Eddie had asked her to be his girlfriend at fourteen, running away from anything that could make her happy because she couldn't and wouldn't hurt the people who had been there with open arms and a hot meal, all the times Dani had run away from the misery of home. So yes, Dani was an expert when it came to running; she had been running for so long that she had the instinct to run deep down on her skin.

  
She had spent her life running that she no longer knew how to stop.

And Dani ran, she ran because of her fear of the unknown, fear of knowing herself, fear of being herself, fear of feeling happy, fear of liking it and becoming addicted to the feeling of being happy and strong. She was running away from the fear that she would stop caring about hurting someone just for the happiness she had touched with her fingertips on a few occasions in her life. Dani was running away from herself.

She had been running for so long that, along the way, she had lost her own self and was not sure if she would ever find it again.  


She could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had been relentless with her instinct and ignored her innate need to run. When Eddie proposed and Dani said no, that was the first time in her life she'd been standing for herself, she was surprised by the determination in her voice. Dani had said no and the feeling of power had stayed with her for weeks, giving her a security she couldn't remember ever feeling before.  
Dani had said no and she was glad she hadn't run away, at least the first time. Dani knew that, as much as she had stood up that time, she couldn't help but run away afraid of her feelings if Eddie asked her again. So, she did exactly what she expected of herself. Four months after the first time, she ran away.

She ran away and said "yes". Not for herself, not because deep down Dani loved Eddie and knew she could be happy, if she tried hard enough, in a life she didn't want and didn't feel was hers. She said "yes" because, along with the feeling of being able to stand up for herself and say "no" when she wanted to, the heartbroken expression on Eddie's face had haunted her dreams, a reminder that she'd hurt her lifelong best friend, the person who stood by her side whenever Dani felt lost and sad, the person who opened his arms for her to cry when it was all too much to keep her feelings buried.

  
The second time had been a couple of months before the wedding, during the usual Friday date with Eddie at their favorite restaurant. He had noticed and had chosen to ignore it. She was drowning and could hide it anymore.

The sleepless nights, the dark circles under her eyes, the physical distancing, the daydreaming, the moments when her mind disconnected from reality and sat absently staring at a fixed point for hours. Close but far away. In a place where Eddie couldn't reach her, a place where even she couldn't reach herself. Dani wasn't her lately.

But who was she really?

Eddie had confronted her just before their dinner arrived and Dani, for the first time, had told the truth, "It was too big, too many people, too much pressure, too many expectations, too much of everything" and when Eddie had said that they could do something smaller, more intimate and when he had told her, relieved, that for a moment he thought she didn't want to marry him at all, Dani didn't run away.

  
  
Dani didn't run, although when Eddie started shouting at her in the car that "how could she do that to him after so many years" Dani felt a real urge to run away. To run as far as her legs could carry her, to hide somewhere where no one knew her and try to forget the venom in the words of the most important person in her life. Dani didn't run, but her feelings did, she stopped holding back the tears, she stopped holding back her feelings, she stopped holding back her truth, she stopped holding back herself and for the first time she ran, not to run away but to face herself.

  
So Dani spoke, she let herself talk about the feelings that all her life she felt were wrong, she let them flow without holding them back, she looked at the person she had shared so much with, the person she loved the most in the world, her childhood best friend and told him that she couldn't lie to herself anymore, that she couldn't lie to him anymore, that she didn't want to hurt him, that's why she had tried, she had given everything she had to return Eddie's love in the way he had devoted her, but that she had never felt the way she was supposed to feel, the way everyone had told her she was supposed to feel, that she could never love him the way he loved her and she had tried and she loved him, just not in the same way. And then she ran. She ran to the bus stop, after Eddie literally pulled her out of the car and told her to disappear from his life, that he didn't want to see her again.  
Dani ran and her heart broke.

  
She had tried, god knew Dani had done everything and more to try to love him in the right way. But she was tired. Tired of trying, and if she was honest with herself, she was also tired of running, tired of lying, tired of feeling empty, tired of living like this. So she ran. And Dani didn't quite understand the difference between "living and existing". She couldn't remember a time when she had experienced what it meant to "live". Maybe when her father was alive, memories of a six-year-old girl faded with time and the bad memories pressing the good memories against a remote corner in her brain that Dani no longer had access to. But she knew she couldn't go on like this.

Dani knew better than anyone that running had consequences. Spending your life running away from yourself to please others, for the happiness of others, had consequences. And yes, people said it was a good quality to be altruistic and to think of the welfare of the people around you before yourself, but Dani knew better. Dani knew that, with certain people, the more you gave the more they asked for in return. That the more expectations you fulfilled for someone, the more demanding they became. That when you put your head down and nodded without complaint once, they expected you to do it every time.  


And Dani thought she had no choice but to put her head back down, force a smile and keep running, away from her and live up to what her mother, Judy, Eddie and half the town expected of her. That she'd come to her senses and go apologize to Eddie, they would blame on the typical pre-wedding jitters, that, as her mother had told her, he'd take her back as if nothing had happened, that they'd be married that spring and in a couple of years it would be the one thing everyone had told her was the best she could hope for in a small Midwestern town. Dani was tired. Tired of everyone deciding for her, tired of having no choice, no opinion, no voice. Tired that the only promising future she could aspire to in Iowa was to marry her childhood sweetheart, become a stay-at-home mom with no need to work and bear children for a husband she didn't love.

And Dani was resigned to that, until the day Dani ran for the first time thinking about her.

  


That day, the day she had decided to run away from everything but herself, as her brain processed everything better than she would have expected in that situation. Not panic, not doubt, not fear. Her hands trembled trying to not drop the test. Two lines. Positive... a baby. Someone who would depend on her, someone to be strong for, someone to run for, someone to belong to.

So Dani ran for the first time selfishly. Dani ran without looking back, without saying goodbye, without thinking of anything or anyone but herself and the baby growing inside her. A baby she knew deserved more than what she could offer if she stayed. Because she knew that if she stayed, Eddie would take her back, Eddie would love her despite the fact that she would never love him back in the same way, Eddie would completely ignore the conversation that night when Dani had first admitted out loud, and to herself, her attraction to women, Eddie would forget everything. They would get married and that baby would have to grow up in a broken and unhappy home, exactly like her, and even though she knew Eddie would love the baby unconditionally, Dani couldn't do that to them. She couldn't do that to herself.  
She wrote three letters, to Eddie, to Judy and to her mom, packed her bags one Sunday while everyone was at church, took all her savings out of the bank and ran.

  
She ran and she would never look back.

  
Once on the plane, fear gripped her. London was far away, but Dani couldn't help thinking that they might find her, that they might drag her back to Iowa again. Her hands reached for her belly and she took a deep breath, trying to relax and think clearly.  
The emotions she'd been pushing all week had decided to run her over suddenly and without warning.No, they couldn't find her, she had left no clue in the letters for them to find her, she had left no clue as to where she was going or what she intended to do with her life.

A letter to Eddie in which she asked him to forgive her for the damage she had caused him and for having lied to him, hiding a truth that had hurt them both, and although he didn't know and Dani hoped he would never know, she also asked him to forgive her for hiding the life that was growing inside her. But Eddie deserved more, he deserved a woman who loved him the way he loved her, a woman who could offer him a real family. And their baby deserved better than they could ever offer them.

A letter to Judy thanking her for being his mother when her own mother was too busy drinking and tucking into bed the first guy who offered her warmth for a night, thanking her and asking her forgiveness for not delivering, for not being the daughter she knew Judy wanted so badly.

A letter to her mom, telling her not to look for her, to not try to find her, a letter saying everything she had kept quiet for years and knew her mother would never accept, so the only forgiveness she had put in the letter to her mother had been a "I'm sorry but I'm not sorry at all".  


Dani closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to get Iowa out of her head. Even flying over the ocean, thousands of miles away, on her way to an uncertain destination, even so, she felt trapped in a place she had never been. Dani had never felt like she belonged anywhere, to anyone. God, she didn't even feel like she belonged to herself, but now she would belong to someone. Even if she was lost, scared, about to face the unknown, in a far away new country, in a place with no friends, nowhere safe to go, even with all that, she had someone to fight for, someone who would need her, someone who already made her feel strong and determined, someone she belongs to.  
She relaxed in her seat and tried to sleep so that the remaining hours of the flight would pass more quickly. For the first time in a long time, her muscles relaxed, flooding her with a calm she couldn't remember ever feeling before, and she allowed herself to dream. To dream of a future, to dream of a face without defined features but with light eyes and curly hair, she allowed herself to dream of being happy, of living under her own demands which really weren't many, she allowed herself to dream of a little house, of a garden full of flowers, of pancake Sundays, and toys all over the floor, she allowed herself to dream of something she never had: a real family.  
The accumulated tiredness of the last few days finally took its toll once her body relaxed and Dani slept, slept with tears in her eyes and a faint smile on her lips.

Dani slept and when she woke up, she had reached the beginning of her life.


	2. I'm stuck inside my head (and I can’t fight it)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for any mistake.  
> Enjoy~~

Dani jerked awake with a scream tearing at her throat, hands trying to hold on something steady. But she found nothing, the more absolute, horrifying nothing. Sitting up in bed, sheets balled up in her fists, gasping in desperate need of shuffling air into her lungs, Teary eyes trying to look around for something familiar to help her remember where she was.

_You’re in your room. At Bly. Safe. Alone_

No, not alone. Never alone. The shadows were still there, still with her. As always they were. As always they would be. A cold, chilling sweat, ran down her back as the room closed around her. Suffocating

Long, bony, dark shadows, haunting every corner of her flat, of her mind, of her dreams. Feeling their cold, empty eyeballs staring at her – as she staring back- deep into the depths of her soul, searching there for something to hurt her. A way to take the most important thing Dani had in her life from her.

The only thing Dani had ever loved unconditionally and genuinely, without half-lies, without pretense, without expectations. Pure, innocent and selfless love.

She couldn't remember the last time nightmares tormented her like this - they were usually mild, silent, like a whisper, an itch in her brain as she slept, easy to handle, remaining peacefully quiet.

Remembering the countless times Rebecca had been by her side when this happened before, she tried to remember her advice - _visualise a calm, warm, safe place._ She tried. But the shadows followed her everywhere. Telling her she had nowhere to go, to be safe, to keep safe that which she loved the most

She braced herself, struggling in her try to keep her breath under control as Rebecca's voice echoed with calm peace in her head. - _Count to three Dani, you can do it, just focus on my voice.-_

One. Two. Three.

She broke down

She raised her hands to her face, keeping her crying muffled between them. Only then did she realise that it hadn't been the voice in her head, in fact, Becca was there, at the edge of her bed, standing, waiting for her to give her a signal to approach, speaking in a calm, quiet voice, trying to calm her down, but Dani couldn't hear her, Dani could hear nothing but the accelerated beating of her heart, beating angrily against her ribs; she could hear nothing but the echo in her head of Sam's desperate scream before going silent in her nightmares. Like a quiet - but constant - murmur drilling against the walls deep inside her head. Driving her insane.

She reached out a hand blindly, searching eyes closed for her friend's comfort, and when Rebecca's arms wrapped tightly around her, pulling her close to her chest over her beating heart, Dani collapsed. Biting Rebecca's shirt in an attempt to drown out her screams -- for a second afraid of ripping it off -- crying uncontrollably, allowing the emotions to flow through her body without holding them back, letting them take control of her body and mind.  
  


She didn't know how long she had spent crying ugly tears sheltered inside Rebecca's warm embrace, holding on to her friend as if her life depended on it, as if it was the only thing capable of keeping her stable at that moment. Her jaw barely felt from the strength she had used trying not to scream, her eyes burned red with tears and unable to stop shaking.

With her cheek resting against the top of her head, as she rocked her, stroking her hair tenderly with one hand and her back with the other, steadily, as she whispered to Dani to concentrate on the seconds it took for her hands to travel the distance from the top of her back to the bottom, over and over again.

After what seemed like forever, Rebecca's quiet voice fell silent to fill the room with nothing but Dani's soft sobs. She pulled away from her friend's hug to sit with her back against the headboard, let her head fall back against the wall with her eyes closed, and kept her mind focused on her breathing, not wanting to lose control again.

“Thanks” whispered quietly, a tired smile in her lips

“Don’t do that, you know you don’t have to thank me” with a tender stroke in her ankle before sitting next to her legs, Rebecca gave her a worried look. “I heard you scream” Dani's eyes snapped open with a gasp “I checked on him before came here, he’s still asleep” Dani grinned at Sam's heavy sleep - considering his young age. A truck full of horns could blow up, and he' d still be tucked into a peaceful slumber. “Do you wanna talk?” offering a soft smile, Rebecca kept rubbing the bare skin of her ankle in an attempt to comfort her from a position of not making her feel suffocated.

Rebecca knew all too well Dani's torment. She didn't need to tell her, in fact she wasn't sure her state of mind would allow her to do so, she was afraid of breaking down again if she tried.

  
  


As a child she had read something that had stuck with her in the deepest part of her mind. One boring afternoon, at the local library, she had been killing time searching through random websites, jumping from topic to topic, each one stranger than the last and without any connection between them, getting darker as she read on, losing track of time with her eyes glued to the old computer screen, causing irritation in her eyes.

She spent hours like this until she reached a website with supernatural tales, urban legends and topics for which in other times she would have been burned as a witch, branding her a heretic just for the simple fact of laying her eyes on them.

Until she had come across an ancient legend - or myth, she wasn't sure - a relatively short and vague article stating that when you say out loud your greatest fears, they become real. And for years, she still was, Dani had been scared of her fears, of saying them out loud, making herself vulnerable to her darkest terrors, giving them strength by giving them voice. So she shook her head with a warm smile to Rebecca, trying to push the images of her nightmares out of her head. She cannot give them shape now, she cannot give them a voice, far from it, much less power.

Not with her head echoing the constant hum of the shadows in her dreams, almost as if reciting a prayer, almost as if reciting a curse.

“ _Too weak to protect” “Too broken to keep him safe” “Failure, failure, failure...”_

She cannot give power to the shadows. The shadows stalking her in the dark, shadows she couldn't see the face of but knew their features all too well. Shadows with long, bony fingers, crushing her firmly against a cold solid surface, holding her still, as Dani struggled, screaming, yelling, kicking and fighting, trying to free herself, trying to reach Sam's small body fading away in the dark.

Shadows that had stayed with her for years.

Dani thought she had escaped the real personification she had given to the shadows - Eddie, her mother, the O'Maras, the guilt in her gut making her nauseous and her body itch incessantly, when the town priest and his irritating whistling voice recited like every Sunday what awaited Linda Nielsen for choosing a life of sin. She thought she had escaped the moment she had caught the first flight to London at the airport years ago, thinking she would be free of them, but even here, thousands of miles away from Iowa, from her past, from demands, from regrets, from other people's desires, far from expectations.... The shadows were still there. Much quieter, much less enquiring. But there nonetheless.

They had told her so. She couldn't escape. She couldn't run away from herself, from her conscience, from her fear, from her own shadows.

There were shadows - fears - that she had taken with her that day, shadows that in her dreams haunted her and dragged her back to a life of bending her head and nodding, murmuring in her ear every night that "there is no safe place". Feeding by fear that they would find her, fear that they would discover the real reason she had run away, fear that they would take Sam away from her, fear that she would give him an unhappy life.

Shadows that had eased the first time she held her son in her arms and for the first time she felt strong, strong enough to stand up to the world, strong enough to fight.

Dani had found strength for him.

Dani had found fear of losing him.

"It's okay, we don't need to talk," she felt Rebecca's hand gently squeeze her ankle. Dani sniffled before her eyes travelled to the alarm clock on her bedside table, five in the morning.

"My God, Becca, I'm sorry I woke you up" Dani started to panic, gesturing her hands and apologising frantically.

"Hush." She waved her hand dismissively accompanied by a firm look before nodding slightly "Don't do that, it's my day off after all. I don't have to go anywhere early, so why don't you wash your face a bit, no offence but you look awful sweetheart," Dani didn't suppress a chuckle at Rebecca's comment "you grab a blanket, wait for me on the couch and while I'm in the kitchen making a cuppa, you look for something to watch." Dani opened her mouth but before she could say anything a voice that left no room for denial cut her off "It wasn't a question, it was an order, so get off your ass, lady, and go put on The Bachelor."

Dani let out a laugh muttering an "okay" as she watched Rebecca walk out the door of her room with an amused smile doing a little victory dance.

  
  


She stood up on shaky legs, her body numb, trying not to lose her balance and once in the bathroom she examined herself in the mirror. She had certainly had better moments, red face, puffy eyes, matted hair. She tried to hand-comb her messy locks before giving up, splashing water on her face and going back to the bedroom to get a blanket, the laptop and an oversized hoodie.

When she was in the living room, she turned on the laptop, setting it gently on the coffee table trying not to make a sound and sat back against the armrest, legs against her chest, blanket around her shoulders, watching across the flat as Rebecca moved around the kitchen silently dancing "shut up and dance with me" to her off-key croon and couldn't help but smile with a soft laugh.

Dani was thankful that she'd bumped into Rebecca the moment she did. Becca, who almost without knowing her, with her kind smile and the firmness in the tone of her voice, had dragged Dani out of the dingy motel that had become a temporary "home" for the first three months she had spent in London and had taken Dani to Bly, to her flat.

During the first few weeks, Dani had found several part-time jobs where they didn't mind hiring a five-month pregnant woman even though they were hard, physically demanding jobs. And she needed the money anyway.

Luckily Dani had kept intact the inheritance her father left her when he died - it wasn't a fortune, but it was money nonetheless. And some of the advantages of living in a small, old-fashioned Midwestern town where all a woman is expected to do is live off her husband and devote herself to providing him with children, a meal on the table and a warm bed, was that Dani had managed to save quite a bit over the years that Eddie had insisted she shouldn't spend her money. She had no voice in the matter, though.

Becca, who the first time Dani had left an envelope of money on the kitchen counter with a simple "my share of the rent" written on it, Rebecca had shown up at her workplace - for years Dani wondered how she'd figured out where to find her that day, she still did - yelled things at her boss that would make a trucker blush, dragged her into the flat, dropped the envelope in front of her and with a firm: "The next time you think about paying anything from the flat, or trying to work being pregnant, or trying to repay me in any way other than watching The Bachelor with a tub of ice cream and a cup of tea, I'll kick you out with nothing but the clothes on your back," had forced her to quit all her jobs, not before threatening her ex-bosses to destroy their lives if they ever thought of hiring someone in a state again, in a so elegantly and sophisticatedly way that Dani doubted for a second that she was threatening and not congratulating them.

*******

With a grunt of discomfort Jamie rolled onto her side, facing the window, narrowed eyes scanning her room, trying to remember how she'd made it home. A glance over her shoulder made her let out a sigh. She tried to get up without any care of waking whoever was lying behind her holding her prisoner in her own bed, legs entwined, arm around her waist, breath sticky warm on the back of her neck.

With more effort than she would normally need, she sat on the edge of the bed before walking heavily towards the bathroom. Breathing hard with blurred vision, a wave of nausea hit her without warning and she had to hold on to the sink to keep from falling, arms outstretched on the surface she rested her forehead on the cold marble trying to ease the discomfort.

_What the hell had she done last night?_

  
  


It took a couple of minutes before she recovered enough to look in the mirror and see something more than a blur in front of her and was able to examine herself - not that Jamie was any stranger to those kinds of mornings, mornings of bruised body, itchy throat, purple knuckles, dry mouth and even some mornings a sore wrist and the irritation between her legs. With a quick glance at his reflection, however, she mumbled a curse as a hand ran slowly down her body, a large, reddish bruise rising from her left shoulder blade, spreading across her ribs and dying in a horrible bleeding at her hip bone. The right side of her body looked no better, scratches and wounds along the side of her body, from neck to thigh.

Luckily her face had fared better, only the throbbing split lip and split right cheekbone were the only visible after-effects of whatever Jamie had done last night.

With pain throbbing through her numb body, she moved to the laundry basket, pulled out some shorts and a flannel shirt and tried to cover up a little. She rummaged in the bathroom medicine cabinet for something for the pain and swallowed the pills without water - scratching her throat on the way down. And walked out into the kitchen, not being careful to be noisy enough not to wake her guest.

  
  


If she was lucky today she'd be Jamie's type, the type who was just looking for a one-night stand and the following morning leave without feeling the need to say goodbye or a suggestive "call me if you want to do it again". In a place like Bly it was completely unnecessary to exchange numbers with anyone, it was relatively easy to find women like her with only one gay bar in town.

If she wanted company, she knew where to look for it. Filling her phone with numbers of strangers whose faces she could barely remember was completely stupid for Jamie if you asked her.

She sat at the counter with a bowl of cereal, chewing with a blank stare trying to keep the nausea at bay, she was used to all this, but that didn't mean it would get easier as the days went by. She was tired of feeling numb, tired of feeling nothing, but she didn't want to try, she didn't want to make herself vulnerable.

Her life wasn't perfect, but it was in her control.

It was lonely not having someone to spend her days off with, watching bad movies curled up on the couch, not having someone to take care of her when she got sick, someone to make her smile in the morning and greet her with a kiss when she came home. It was a lonely life, but nice and boring at the same time. Just her and her plants. No complications, no one to explain herself to, no one expecting anything more than a night of hot, casual sex- after all, that was all Jamie had to offer. That was all Jamie wanted to offer.

Jamie sighed with shut eyes before dumping the entire contents of the bowl into the bin and pouring herself a cup of tea.

"Morning."

_Shit._

Without looking away from the kettle on the stove, Jamie emitted a soft "humm" in response hoping she understood her lack of interest saving them both an awkward moment. She heard the woman clear her throat behind her back. Jamie craned her head over her shoulder to see her distractedly fiddling with the buttons of one of _her_ shirts on the other side of the kitchen island.

"Yesterday was fun" her eyes snapped back to the whistling pot and Jamie focused her attention on making her tea, she didn't need to turn around to hear the flirtatious smile in her tone, she didn't need to turn around to see her sway her hips sinuously as she moved towards her and Jamie definitely didn't need to see her to know her shirt was now lying on the floor.

"Aye. It was" she rolled her eyes

Jamie tensed, trying to hold back a pained groan, as the body-which she had surely spent the night skillfully exploring-slammed hard against her back, pressing her hips against the countertop-right over the throbbing wound-as long arms wrapped knowingly around her, sneaking under the fabric of the flannel, caressing the sensitive skin of her chest with their nails, clawing her at the apex between pain and pleasure. sending shivers down her spine causing an involuntary moan.

_Oh, that was new._

"We could do that again sometime" she purred with her head resting on her shoulder, nipping at the skin behind her ear, moving with wet kisses along her jawline, down her neck, licking and sucking the thin skin over her pulse, accompanying each kiss with a light thrust of her hips. Another moan, deep and hoarse from the back of Jamie’s throat when teeth ripped the skin right there, pushing her even harder against the countertop.

Jamie tried to come to her senses. She tried to concentrate on the whistling of the kettle, forgotten over the fire. She wasn't like that, morning sex - her favourite, it was something too intimate for her, reserved for someone special, someone to spend hours with in the shelter of a bed, wrapped in a cocoon of sheets, the mornings when her dreams made her a little girl longing for love and affection again. Long, slow mornings, filled with soft touches and soft, firm, hot, warm, wet kisses.

She blamed it on the effect of the pills, on having taken them on an empty stomach. It was easier than admitting that the touch of a person-even if it was carnal, momentary, unknown, from someone whose name she couldn't even remember-in the state she was in that morning, was comforting.  
  


Jamie let her head fall back, leaning her weight against the woman, breath heaving her eyes closed, surrendering to the pleasure. One hand firmly on her breast squeezing it gently, fingers sliding further and further down, scratching the skin of her lower stomach on their way down to the waistband of Jamie's shorts, slipping underneath without permission.

"You know, we can get out there before, maybe even a date" whispered as the tips of her fingers pressed painfully delightful against her clit.

_And…._ it's over.

Jamie wrinkled the bridge of nose before pushing her hips backwards forcing the woman to break the embrace.

"Ya... you see..." Jamie turned at that moment clearing her throat with a blank expression, eyes narrowed, still clouded with pleasure, she rubbed her temples with her gaze locked on her before walking by her through "that kinda thing..." she picked up the shirt from the floor and offered it to her "It's not my cup of tea." she pursed her lips as she waited for the woman to grab it.

"Oh," She folded her arms, shutting down completely, watching her guest's expression fade into a disappointed frown. "Well, I'll see you around, I guess."

With that she disappeared into Jamie's room and she took the opportunity to get out the kettle, still whistling in the sudden silence of the kitchen, and pour herself a cup of tea. Cup of tea in hand, she took a long sip as she listened to the woman fiddling around, she supposed, looking for her clothes from the night before. With her back back to the door of her room, she leaned against the kitchen island.

After a couple of minutes, she heard the door to her room open and close behind her, light footsteps walking heavily towards the door, the hinges of the front door creaking open, followed by a "goodbye" before it closed and left Jamie alone again, in the silence of her flat that suddenly felt too big and too small at the same time.

  
  


She gulped down her tea, checked the time. 6a.m., and as tempting as the thought of lying in the dark in her bedroom with nothing but a bottle of whisky to drown the pain in her body until she lost consciousness until the next day was, the need to occupy her day with something productive was far greater. The need to strain her bruised body until exhaustion to keep her from thinking was far more tempting.

With a sigh she walked to the shower with slow steps, turned on the water, undressed and while waiting for it to warm up, tried again to remember what she had done last night. With a quick glance at her hands, at her mangled knuckles and the wounds and cuts on the inside of her palms, she could get a faint idea.

After closing the shop she' d stopped by her flat to change her clothes and arrived at the pub at a quarter to ten. That was all she could remember.

With a heavy grunt, she ran a hand through her hair and jumped into the shower. Hoping the hot water would soothe her senses allowing her to remember something else.

Though she wasn't sure she wanted to.

She threw her head back letting the water fall over her numbing her body, she let out a grunt as the hot liquid stung her wounds. Pouring soap on her hands - instead of the sponge - she hoped to hurt herself less, which seemed impossible, each rub sent thousands of knives of pain through her system making her hiss.

Jamie let herself slide down the shower wall, teeth clenched, until she sat gently on the shower tray, with a pained gasp she hugged her knees to her chest and stifled her cry with the roar of the water.

Jamie cried. Jamie hated herself for being so emotional. Again. Blaming the pills.

She cried until she no longer felt the pain in her body nor in her heart, until she no longer heard the voice in her head, a familiar, constant voice, reminding her of the kind of trash she was and always would be, cried until she no longer felt the need to be held, until her heart went numb again. She threw her head back, letting the water fall hard on her face, and screamed loudly, letting it out. She wasn't sure if Tamara, her assigned therapist in prison, would be proud of her for the kind of life she was choose after all, after the dreams – only her knows- but she was sure she would for not using physical force to try to calm her anger, certainly not smashing her hand against the shower wall - again - was a positive step forward for Jamie.

She stepped out of the shower feeling worse than before and dressed as best she could in a baggy t-shirt, denim dungarees and her Doc Martens before grabbing the keys to the truck and heading for the mansion.

It was Sunday and she didn't need to open the shop. And to be honest she didn't have much work to do at Bly Manor either, but she needed to keep busy and it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on the violas in the greenhouse before she had to plant them in a few weeks anyway.

Bly Manor.

A huge, ancient, expensive -or as Flora might say "Perfectly Splendid" - mansion on the outskirts of town, with vast land for Jamie to maintain, had been Jamie's salvation. Not only had she found a steady job for years, she had found the closest thing to a family she had ever had in her life.

After wandering around London for months as what she was, a lost and lonely teenager, pretending to be tough, sarcastic and cold, Jamie was still a girl in need of love and affection after all, and she had been stupid enough to fall for the toxic love of someone who had given her security, a roof over her head, food, and taught her how to treat a woman to keep her bed warm at night.

Kayla, with her twenty-five years of experience befitting someone raised on the street, her flowing red hair, her green eyes capable of captivating a girl who didn't know what affection meant and her playful smile and her deft fingers, had trapped Jamie in a spider's web of empty promises, and she'd let herself fall at the feet of someone who seemed impossible to reach. After all, how was anyone going to notice a weak, skinny, seventeen-year-old girl from a mining district, with no future, with no hopes, with nothing to offer to a woman like her. So Jamie did what anyone in her situation would do, did everything she could to keep her attention.

She' d done a lot of stupid things to taste that love every night, to feel the warmth of those arms protecting her in the dark. She had committed crimes, petty ones at first because she couldn't say no to Kayla, she couldn't afford to lose the first woman, the first person in her life who had ever told her that she loved her.

So she'd picked up drugs for her, she'd moved drugs for her, she'd stolen cars for her, she'd fought for her, she'd done it all for the promise of that love.

Then she'd ruined her life for it.

*******

When Dani woke up for the second time that day, in an almost undignified position on the living room couch, the first thing her eyes met was Sam's laughing face, tapping her deeply on the cheek trying to wake her gently, but clearly failing.

"Hey, buddy." with a husky voice, Dani sat up, stretching her sore back from the bad posture, before pulling him up onto her legs and pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

"Morning." Smiling with his singsong sweet voice she hugged him tightly

"Good morning, baby" wiggling him a little in the air causing him to giggle uncontrollably. "Do you know where Becca is?" Sam shook his head, denying energetically with a soft rumble already distracted with the plastic dino in his tiny hand. “Okay...” with a confused voice Dani raised her eyebrows before picking Sam up “Are you hungry?

“Yep” happily chuckled, bouncing in her arms, Sam left a sloppy, sounding kiss against her cheek, making her laugh.

“Come on then, get down” Sam jumped out of her arms carefree before rushing off to the kitchen “Sam! Be careful!” shaking her head, Dani followed him to make their usual _Sunday Pancakes,_ still thinking where Becca could be, it was unusual for her to have left without leaving a note or a message first.

She picked up her phone from the counter and sent her a text to check that everything was OK.

  
  


*******

Rebecca entered the venue for the back door, with a firm step and a satisfied smile on her face, walked to the back, dodging tables in the space designed for smokers and pushed with little effort the wooden doors that led to the outdoor terrace - only accessible to a small group of friends - a lovely outdoor terrace with a view and access to the garden, with a glass window protecting it from the wind and rain, sofas and coffee tables. A cosy place where they had spent entire evenings in the warmth of a heater, surrounded by laughter and beers - and of course Owen's delicious food and desserts.

Speaking of the devil. Her eyes flitted to Owen sitting on the porch railing, smoking absentmindedly, her gaze focussed somewhere in the garden. He was waiting for her before head out to the manor as he did almost every Sunday.

  
  


"Is this how you run the business, sitting here with a fag, with the back door unlocked, now people would be stealing your cream croissants?" Rebecca sat down on one of the individual sofas, leaving her purse and jacket on one of the coffee tables.

"If that was the case, I'd never condemn a passion _cream_ " he teased, wiggling his eyebrows up and down with a big grin on his face.

"Oh god" they both laughed until Owen's expression turned serious.

"Are you sure about what you just did?" he asked in a concerned voice.

"Look, I tried, I tried to let it be, to ignore it, but you don't think it can work?" her voice suddenly unsure, looking to her friend for confirmation that she hadn't done something crazy. Owen let out a big breath of air before answering.

"I just hope you didn't do anything that could make things worse for both of them" Running a hand through his dark curls, he looked at Rebecca with a small smile "It would kill me if that would put you, all of us, in an awkward position."

Biting her lip, anxiously, having completely lost confidence that her plan would work, she let the air out shakily rubbing her face hard, hoping she hadn't done something stupid that would put her between a rock and a hard place, because she knew that if it went wrong, if her plan went to shit... she wouldn't be able to choose sides, wouldn't be able to face the consequences.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got here, a big thanks much for reading, who left kudos, bookmarks and comments.  
> Let me know what you think, I hope you liked it ^^
> 
> And a million thanks to M for helping me to correct it.

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest I wasn't planning to write something long, but the idea of this story kept me awake at night so I had to write.
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments and I'll leave my Tumblr too in case you want to drop ideas or correct any mistakes: gay-mess-all-day


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